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Wikipedia:Peer review/United States Congress members killed or wounded in office/archive1

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because after the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford this article/list underwent massive editing. It has since been relatively quiet. I am looking for what would get this to Featured list status. Any help or ideas for the opening paragraph would be the most helpful, as well as thoughts on the layout of the tables.P.S. i am placing this peer review under "history" but if it is better placed under "lists" please feel free to move it.

Thanks, Found5dollar (talk) 20:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this interesting list. Here are some suggestions for improvement with an eye to FLC.

  • I would make it clearer in the lead what the criteria are for inclusion in the list. To me it seems that someone had to want to try to kill or seriously injure the congressman or woman for them to be included here (or there to be serious claims that the intent was lethal for the hotel "disease").
  • That said, I am not sure why Thomas Schall is included, as his death seems to me to be accidental. If the driver was for some reason trying to kill him, that needs to be made much clearer here. My guess is that other congressmen have died in vehicle accidents and are not included here - actually, Hale Boggs would be one such case.
  • I think the lead of such a list is a good place to make summaries - so X died in duels, Y shot, Z senators and Q representatives.
  • Along those lines, what if the lead sentence were something like "Since the United States Congress was established in YEAR, X of its members have been killed in office by people seeking to do them harm, and Y members have suffered serious injuries as a result of such attacks." Not sure it is the greatest, but maybe it gives you an idea.
  • Could also do breakdowns by party, sex, and mention who was the first and who the most recent (all in the lead).
  • Since the main source is titled Members of the U.S. Congress Who Have Died of Other Than Natural Causes While in Office I wonder if this would be better if it followed that source (and listed accidents and suicides)?
  • Refs look OK
  • No dabs or dead external links
  • Only checked a few images, but the liceses I checked looked OK to me.
  • Text is decent - might help to have someone else look it over / do a copyedit (or print the article out, and read it out loud).
  • The wounded section may give you trouble - what are the criteria for being seriously wounded? WOuld it make sense to split this into two lists (deaths and wounded)? I am not sure.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]